The JCP community gathered with unusual promptness at six o’clock Tuesday night. There was plenty to celebrate in the successful launch of important JSRs, the finalizing of JCP.next, and the EC addition of users’ perspective through the special election of new JUG members.

There was an excitement to the JCP annual party held during JavaOne 2011. It wasn’t so much due to the cozy elegance of the Anzu Restaurant in Hotel Nikko or the jazzy music or the open bar. It wasn’t because of the appetizers that appeared in regular waves through the evening, with an assortment of cheeses and fruit, amazing sushi, chocolate fountain with skewered desserts, and candy bar. It wasn’t even caused by Duke, although guests greeted his arrival with the zeal and flashing camera phones.

The biggest clue came when Heather VanCura, the PMO Group Manager, announced the program awards. People clapped and cheered as she read the list of nominees and revealed the winners.

Mike DeNicola, who represents Fujitsu Limited on the EC, received the JCP Member/Participant of the Year award “for his role as JCP.next Working Group Lead,” the informal extension of the JSR 348 Expert Group. Mike had said earlier that he understood this nomination was “an honor that is a result of the many years I have worked in the EC actively attempting to improve the JCP program. Getting a JSR off the ground that significantly improves the JCP process and is moving smoothly towards finalization is the result.”

The Outstanding Spec Lead award went to John Rose of Oracle “for his excellence in ensuring consensus across the community -- both EG members and the wider JVM language community.” John responded, “I’m very honored, and I totally admire and respect my colleagues and co-nominees, Alex and Mark. I’m pleased that with all these years of working on Java we can help it reach new heights.”

JSR 292, Supporting Dynamically Typed Languages on the Java Platform, earned the Most Innovative JSR award. That announcement elicited good-natured laughter, since John Rose is its Spec Lead. “This is not the way I expected this to go. I am humbled, and I thank you all for all your tremendous contributions on our work together,” John said.

The community was expecting three awards, but John Rizzo of Aplix stepped forward to announce a fourth. On behalf of the EC, John granted an honorary Community Leadership Award to Patrick Curran for his work as Spec Lead of JSR 348. John said, “It wasn’t easy, like herding cats, and dealing with a lot of conflict held over from years past. Patrick did a fabulous job mediating all that and handlng the emotions of all the companies.” The community affirmed the news, clapping loud and long. At last Patrick was able to say, “This is unexpected, but thank you. I look forward to more to come.”

Craig Dickson, an independent consultant, won the raffled door prize, a Nikon camera. He said, “I’m happy I left the... party to come to the JCP community event. I like coming here because this is a good opportunity to see the Spec Leads. The food here is upper class, swankier. There’s even sushi!”

All guests left with more than they’d arrived with. The business card of someone they’d just met. A JCP badge ribbon, an updated Java reference book, a Duke-adorned microfiber screen cleaner. A promise that the coming year in the community would hold even more openness and transparency.